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Re: Embouchure and articulation

Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2018-08-07 15:37

Dear Jawad,

I am glad to hear that you feel some improvement.

Now to address tonguing. The only thing, THE ONLY thing thing the tongue does is to stop the reed from vibrating. This is an important point to internalize because it will help clear up some misconceptions.

Place the tip of the tongue on the tip of the reed to stop the sound. To initiate sound, you REMOVE the tip of the tongue from the tip of the reed. It helps to think of tonguing as moving the tongue BACK rather than forward. That means there is NO hitting or slapping of the reed, only MOVING AWAY. Yes, as speed increases it can be a bit confusing because you move the tongue faster in both directions and it can give you a sense of striking the reed, but always think more about the BACKWARD movement.

This brings up the idea of staccato. A staccato note is a brief moment of reed vibration in between silence. So what happens is that the tongue spends more time ON the reed with brief moments of release. In slow motion you can think of staccato like this: "TUT"...silence....."TUT"......silence.....etc. Furthermore staccato should be practiced this way; slowly, deliberately, cleanly. Practicing this way may sound and feel odd because one would never stop a long note with a "T" sound, but this is the only sure fire way to practice good staccato.

Lastly, it is important to note that what provides force (accent, louder sound) is the AIR........NOT the tongue. I love David Shifrin's analogy to the piano. The tongue is the DAMPER and your air is the HAMMER.

The last audio post sounds to me as if you are 'damping' too far down on the reed. The point at which the sound stops sounds delayed to me almost like a jazz saxophonist just damping one side of the reed (see Billy Joel's "I Love You Just the Way You Are"). If placing the tip of your tongue on the crest of the reed feels buzzy and uncomfortable, you have to trust that a week or two of dedicated practice of tip to tip will get that sensation to disappear.

................Paul Aviles

Post Edited (2018-08-07 15:39)

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Re: Embouchure and articulation new

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Re: Embouchure and articulation new

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Re: Embouchure and articulation new

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Re: Embouchure and articulation new

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Re: Embouchure and articulation new

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2018-08-07 21:31

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2018-08-17 08:34

Re: Embouchure and articulation new

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2018-08-30 06:54

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